Michigan Vamp

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Eccentric Night Owl

Quote from Blood Read

"An ambiguously coded figure, a source of both erotic anxiety and corrupt desire, the literary vampire is one of the most powerful archetypes bequeathed to us from the imagination of the nineteenth century."~ page 2 introduction to Blood Read: The Vampire as Metaphor in Contemporary Culture

Intellectual Vampire Quote

"If the vampire is an other, he or she was always a figure in whom one could find one's self...the despicable as well as the defiant, the shameful as well as the unashamed, the loathing of oddness as well as pride in it."~ Richard Dyer

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Friday, May 2, 2014

Please welcome Chris M.Arnone to Fang-tastic Books today.

Chris, let's get started-tell readers a little bit about
yourself and what inspired you to write in this particular genre?

Chris Arnone, married, dad to four
cats, and uber-nerd. Genre is a funny thing. I read all sorts of things and I’m
really picky. As for The Lost and Broken Realm, I wrote the story the way it
needed to be told, which fell into contemporary or cross-world fantasy.

What inspired you to write this
book?

I used to have a job that involved
travel all around the US. Sometimes, on long drives, I would see these
abandoned silos, farmhouses, or factories on the side of the road. I realized
that at one time, those places had been the center of someone’s universe.
Someone built them. Someone lived there, built a business there, or at least
put in their eight hours a day. Now they sit empty and forgotten. I think there’s
a magic in that.

Was one of your characters more
challenging to write than another?

Zhiyan. He’s a giant, literally, but
he’s also this Victorian-style lord. So he’s a massive, imposing figure, but
he’s well-educated and well-connected. The difficulty in writing him, however,
is that the Victorians were waspish. They never said exactly what they mean.
Their insults are veiled and their compliments are backhanded. It was a fun
challenge.

Is there a character that you
enjoyed writing more than any of the others?

Darkness, as in the physical
embodiment of Darkness. That character is eternal, which lends a sense of
immense patience and the character is whimsical. It also knows more than anyone
else and knows it.

Do you have a
formula for developing characters? Like do you create a character sketch or
list of attributes before you start writing or do you just let the character
develop as you write?

I believe
characters are all aspects of the writer’s soul. For me, they often spring
forth fully formed, but they also grow and take shape more as I write them, as
I get into their skin a bit. That often leads to going back and rewriting their
earlier scenes, but it works for me.

Can you tell readers a little bit
about the world building in the book/series? How does this world differ from
our normal world?

The Lost and Broken Realm is mostly
set in this parallel universe. It’s where all of the lost and forgotten people,
creatures, objects, and places come to rest. The world is full of mismatched
objects and mythical creatures that don’t quite match the mythologies. Doors
are also quite important, as they link locations that actually exist in our
world, but have been lost to time.

Do you ever suffer from writer’s
block? How do you deal with it?

I’ve never had writer’s block, my
mind never seems to stop generating ideas for whatever I’m working on or other
projects. My issue is more with time. I have a full-time job, two houses to
keep up, and adult responsibilities. Finding the time to put words to paper
every day is a challenge.

Do you write in different genres?

Well, The Lost and Broken Realm is
my first and I’m currently writing its sequel. However, while the first book is
cross-world fantasy, the second is definitely urban fantasy. I have stories
ideas jotted down that span cyberpunk, dystopic, space opera, and superhero
fiction.

When did you consider yourself a
writer?

I was actually a freelance writer
for the now-defunct Wizard Magazine years back. The first time I saw my name in
that magazine, that was it.

What are your guilty pleasures in
life?

There are no guilty pleasures. If it
brings you pleasure and it’s not at anyone else’s expense, then guilt has no
place in it. I suppose some may consider my unabashed love of Gilmore Girls as
a strange pleasure for a well-bearded, heterosexual man.

Other than writing, what are some of
your interests, hobbies or passions in life?

Where is your favorite place to
read? Do you have a cozy corner or special reading spot?

We have a reading nook off our
master bedroom at home. A couch, chair, and ottoman all packed into this little
space. It’s super comfy and all our cats tend to join us when we’re up there
reading.

What can readers expect next from
you?

The sequel, baby! Seriously, though.
I had actually started writing a superhero fiction book for NaNoWriMo, but once
The Lost and Broken Realm actually came out, I felt a tug to finish the story
for my readers, so I’m writing the sequel.

Where can readers find you on the
web?

Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr,
Goodreads, WattPad, and my website.

Would you like to leave readers with
a little teaser or excerpt from the book?

Excerpt from
Chapter 16:

The expansive cave was filled with statues. Gabriel was
immediately reminded of the terracotta army in China, row after row of warriors
guarding the tombs of ancient Chinese emperors, but these weren’t warriors.
They weren’t distinctly Chinese, either. They were cyclopean; that was the
first thing Gabriel noticed. Rather than two equally distanced eyes, each
statue had one large eye right above the nose.

Unlike those Chinese statues, these weren’t uniform, either.
Different bodies, faces, attire, genders, and ages of Cyclops made up the horde
of stone figures. Dread began to creep back up Gabriel’s spine as he saw
something they all had in common other than their lack of depth perception:
every carved face was locked eternally in an expression of fear. Stout warriors
crouched, hiding their faces. Women with horrified looks stood guarding their
children. Gabriel wondered what foul mind could have sculpted such horrors over
and over again.

“What is this?” Gabriel asked in a hush, frightened voice.

“I don’t know. I’ve never even heard of this place,” Anansi
responded. For the first time since Gabriel had met the manticore, he heard and
felt doubt and fear coming from the creature. Zhiyan kept staring at the
ground, impassive, as Finkle Prime led him along.

“Who is here?” said a voice from the darkness. It sounded
like a young woman, with a bright, luscious voice. Something was amiss with it,
though Gabriel couldn’t figure out exactly what.

“Who is that?” Gabriel asked Anansi.

“I asked you first, mortal,” The voice said playfully.
Gabriel realized what was wrong. The ‘s’ sounds were extended, like Cobra
Commander in G.I. Joe, or like a snake using a human voice. Gabriel couldn’t
figure out where it was coming from. It wasn’t in his head. He’d heard enough
telepathy to know the difference, but this woman’s voice seemed to bounce and
echo around the cave and off the statues that filled it.

“Gabriel. My name is Gabriel. Who are you?” He asked, trying
to keep his voice steady.

“Gabriel. So kind of you to visit. No one comes to visit
anymore. Zhiyan, he keeps them from me. Now here he is, marching to his death,
how fitting,” She said happily.

“Prime, halt,” Gabriel said. The big clockwork man stopped and
Gabriel saw Zhiyan with his head still bowed, but his eyes were closed tightly
and a small smile crept over his face.

“Oh, shit,” Anansi said, suddenly angry. “Zhiyan, if we live
through this, I hope the council draws and quarters your giant ass.”

“What is it?” Gabriel asked nervously.

“Ptolema. Eldest and most vicious of the Gorgon sisters,”
Zhiyan finally said, still holding his eyes closed tightly and smiling wryly.

“Gorgons? Monsters like Medusa?” Gabriel asked, half in
disbelief, half in growing panic. His mind raced. He tried to think of Medusa’s
sisters, but the monster didn’t give him time to remember them.

“What do you know of my sister? She was no monster. She was a
sweet, innocent girl. Raped and then villainized. No, she was no monster,”
Ptolema said, her voice smooth as silk.

“Don’t look her in the eyes!” Anansi suddenly screamed
telepathically. He almost didn’t say it in time.

“I am the monster,” She said, her voice dripping with venom.
Out of the corner of his eye, Gabriel saw a woman come out of the shadows and
into view. One moment later, and he would have looked at her squarely. Instead,
he looked several feet to the side of her, taking in her form using his
peripheral vision. She was tall as a man, a bit taller than Gabriel from what
he could tell, and she wore a ragged red dress that came almost to the ground.
Rather than legs, Gabriel saw a mass of writhing snakes skimming along the
ground. She tried to dart directly into Gabriel’s view, faster than he
expected, but he dropped his eyes fully to the ground. Her arms gleamed a
brilliant, shining gold color, and reflected light from Prime’s shoulder lamps
all around the cave. Gabriel wondered if her hair was made of venomous snakes
like the stories told, but he didn’t chance looking up near her face.

“Why do you look away, Gabriel? Why do you not meet my gaze?
Am I not beautiful?” Ptolema asked, almost pouting.

“No thanks. I’d rather not turn to stone today,” Gabriel
said, his voice shaking. He remembered the stories of Medusa, how she turned
men to stone with her gaze, and how Perseus destroyed her with a mirrored
shield.

“There are worse ways to die,” Ptolema said, all the
playfulness, seduction, and beauty suddenly gone from her voice. She was deadly
serious. And then she was moving. She was fast, so much faster than Gabriel
could have imagined. He leapt out of her way, but only just in time. He felt
the wind move past him and smelled her, a waft of rotting flesh and dry
snakeskin.

Gabriel scrabbled along the cave floor to get away from the horrifying
woman. Tiny snake heads snapped at the air behind his heels. He looked all
around for something, anything to fight with, to hide behind, anything.

“Oh, get up, little man. Die on your feet,” Ptolema balked,
and then laughed at him, but only briefly. A massive shadow suddenly came over
Gabriel, blocking out the light from Prime’s lamps. Fearful of looking up, he
looked around and saw a massive paw, like one belonging to a lion that was
three times larger than it should have been. A deafening roar filled his ears
and Gabriel crawled out from under the creature, seemingly unnoticed. It was
almost a giant lion, except it had two equally huge red feathered wings and the
tail of a scorpion, its stinger poised to strike some thirty feet up in the
air.

Gabriel Drake had royally fouled up his life. Before his wife died, he was wealthy, respected, and loved. He pissed away the small fortune he and his wife built, drove away his friends, alienated his family, and even took a few precarious steps on the wrong side of the law. He lost his way. The world had forgotten the man he was, and then a head-on collision between his Jeep and a tree changed everything.

Death would have been easier. Instead, he’s woken up in a strange place where all the lost and forgotten things and people of our world go to rest. The laws of physics seem to be driven more by magic than logic. Cats fly and talk into his mind. He’s in a place where real power has been trampled under the foot of a maniacal emperor, and Gabriel alone has the power to free these forgotten people from the emperor’s iron grip. Which will Gabriel save: these lost and broken people, or his own shattered life?

About the Author:

Chris grew up in Independence, MO. He attended college at Truman State University where he pursued his loves of theater, music, and the written word. Now, he makes his home in Kansas City, MO with his wife Christy and their four cats.

Aside from writing feverishly, he is an avid supporter of the Kansas City burlesque, performance, and arts communities. He is an occasional emcee, outspoken supporter of LGBTQ equality, and King of the Nerds. No, you didn't vote for him; that's why he's king, not president.